Newcastle’s Rory Clegg overcomes early difficulty to keep Gloucester at bay

Rory Clegg kicked 15 points as Newcastle claimed a convincing Premiership victory over Gloucester at a wet and windy Kingston Park.

Clegg overcame a difficult start, when he allowed Gloucester in for an easy try in the opening minute, to find the target with five penalties while Sinoti Sinoti crossed for a try for Newcastle.

The Newcastle fly-half contributed to a dream Gloucester start when the captain, Matt Kvesic, charged down his attempted clearance kick after 38 seconds and the prop John Afoa followed up to score, with Bill Burns’ conversion making it 7-0.

There was a long delay early on after Charlie Sharples took a heavy blow to the head but fortunately he was able to walk off and Tom Isaacs replaced him.

Clegg clipped the post with a 45-metre penalty in the eighth minute but did find his range almost immediately afterwards when Gloucester went off their feet again to make the score 3-7.

When the visitors dropped the scrum in the 16th minute, Clegg’s accurate kick put them a point behind.

Mike Blair’s darting run drew yet another penalty for offside and Clegg edged the Falcons ahead 9-7 at half-time but Gloucester must have fancied their chances with the wind and rain at their backs in the second half.

But it was Clegg again kicking over a 42nd-minute penalty from 35 metres to make it 12-7 after Gloucester conceded yet another penalty at the breakdown.

Newcastle then took a real grip on the game when Juan Pablo Socino cut through Gloucester’s defence, Ally Hogg rumbled on and then Clegg and Alex Tait set up Sinoti for a try in the 45th minute. Burns was short with a 50-metre kick but gave Gloucester a boost with a 56th-minute penalty for offside to make it 17-10.

But when the former Newcastle captain James Hudson was sent to the sin-bin for an off-the-ball tackle, Clegg kicked his fifth penalty in the 63rd minute to make it 20-10.

Burns hit the post with a penalty shortly afterwards and then Gloucester declined two kickable penalties in the last six minutes to go for the corner. But it proved of no avail in the face of some determined Newcastle resistance.